- Marxist view: The Depression was capitalism’s inevitable crisis, a collapse of overproduction and speculation.
- Monetarist view (Friedman & Schwartz): The Depression was primarily a monetary failure — the Fed’s inability to prevent bank collapses and deflation.
- Keynesian view: The Depression reflected a collapse in aggregate demand, requiring government intervention to restore spending.
- Modern consensus: It was a convergence of market excesses (stock and real estate speculation run amok), banking fragility, and Federal Reserve policy mistakes (mistakenly contracting the money supply by about 30% leading to deflation, bank collapse and worsening unemployment).
Related:
On social media, it is popular to say we are in “late-stage capitalism”. It kind of sounds intellectual, and seldom does anyone disagree. We must be in “late-stage capitalism” or something…
The term, though, was invented by Marxists in 1925 when they claimed that capitalism had already failed.
The phrase has been used for 100 years – and capitalism continues to flourish while Marxism is mostly dead.
Today, it is a pop phrase in some online “Gen Z” communities that have no knowledge of history.
The phrase no longer means much of anything – but signals to those who know that the person spouting “late-stage capitalism” is not very knowledgeable.
